This is the tidied-up transcript of a talk I gave a month ago at the Content Strategy Forum 2013 in Helsinki, Finland. It was the third consecutive year I’d spoken at the forum and it was quite possibly the most enjoyable talk I’ve given to date.

A fews weeks ago in late October I had the pleasure of speaking at CS Forum 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa. I couldn’t have been more excited by the prospect of talking before an audience of content professionals about a subject that’s become very near to my heart for the past couple of years: visualising data. Here is a transcript of my talk.

This is a video of my talk from last month’s CS Forum 2011 in London. I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with some incredibly smart folks, so do make yourself comfortable and watch them all, particularly the excellent lightning talks by Shelly, Matthew, Nicole, and Sara.

Back in the spring, when I first sowed the seeds of this open project, I had no idea how things would play out. I really shouldn’t have been so worried.

Let me begin by extending a huge and sincere thanks to everyone who played their part in this, particularly those who responded to the survey, encouraged others to do so, and remained patient as I worked out what to do with the results, and to the attendees of CS Forum 2011 who offered such kind words following my sole destroying (you had to be there) attempt to squeeze the last six months into 20 minutes. I can’t deny it’s been fun.

Though the finished diagram is by no means perfect, I can say with a measure of confidence that not only are these the six commonest paths today’s practising content strategists have taken to reach the discipline, but that they demonstrate the extent of our varied skills and approaches. It only serves to emphasise how much we need to continue sharing a little of what we’ve picked up along the way.

Despite failing to dangle a carrot of any real significance, a fair number of you kindly responded to my survey of web content professionals earlier this year. I’ve since prodded the resulting spreadsheet a number of times with a stick to see what moved, before detailing my findings in a series of posts. So far, I’ve revealed who and where we all are, where we work and where our talents lie, which tasks we’re more likely to take on and how closely we believe our educational backgrounds have impacted on our careers. Now, in what marks the final post of this series, I reveal what we were up to in our careers five and ten years ago and the extent to which we believe these points in time have impacted on our work today.

Earlier this year, I managed to coax a few of you web content professionals into responding to a survey. Since then, in a series of staggered posts, I’ve used the results from that survey to reveal a little more about who and where we all are, where we work and where our talents lie and which tasks we’re more likely to take on. Now, we’re going to find out about our educational backgrounds, and in particular how closely we believe it impacts on the work we do today.

Since, many moons ago now, I conducted a survey of web content professionals I’ve gotten around to displaying the results for gender, age and location as well as revealing where we work and where our talents lie. Now, using a novel combination of see-saws, coloured blocks and gravity, I reveal which tasks content strategists are more likely to take on or, in some cases, get landed with. How do these results compare with the work you do?

After having to disappoint literally ten people who asked if I had any plans to sell prints of my diagrams, I’ve finally bowed to the pressure.

One of the primary reasons for my long-standing reluctance was the thought of organising the printing, handling and distribution of the prints myself. Getting to the stage where I’d be on first name terms with the Post Office cashiers as I negotiated another shipment of thundersticks to a far flung land didn’t exactly fill me with much enthusiasm.

So when I stumbled upon these fine folks at Society6 and realised I could get away with placing any would-be customer in their capable hands, I finally got excited by the whole idea. You see, when you or I buy a product from Society6′s stable of ridiculously talented artists from around the world, they handle the production, packaging and shipping on the artist’s behalf. I know. I’ve rubbed my eyes a few times now and it still reads the same.

Between April and May web content professionals from six continents were surveyed about their life, work and education. In part 1 of this series I used a colourful array of charts and maps to display the results for gender, age and location. Now, not so hot on its heels, here’s part 2 which attempts to shed some light on the working lives of today’s content strategists.

Between April and May, as part of the community-led project I’m running over the summer, 265 web content professionals from six continents (thank you) were surveyed about their life, work and education. This first set of graphics display the results for gender, age and location.